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This is an image with the theme " Home + Habitat in Africa " from:

Sleek lates

A freshwater perch found only in Lake Tanganyika, valued by local fisheries.

Photo: Fundi49, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The sleek lates is a fish species native to Lake Tanganyika in central Africa. It supports local commercial fishing and grows up to 45 centimetres long.

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  • Endemic to Lake Tanganyika
  • Reaches 45 cm standard length
  • Important for local commercial fisheries
  • Known as Mikebuka in Tanzania
  • Called Mukeke in DRC and Burundi

What it is

This fish belongs to the group known as lates perch. It has a streamlined body shape suited for life in deep lakes. Adults can grow to a maximum length of 45 centimetres measured from head to tail base. The species is distinct to one specific location in Africa.

Where it lives

The sleek lates lives only in Lake Tanganyika. This large rift valley lake spans parts of Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi. No other bodies of water host this population naturally.

How it lives

Details about its daily habits or food sources are not provided in the available records. As a member of the perch family, it likely swims in open water rather than hiding near the bottom. Predators and prey relationships remain unrecorded here.

Breeding and life cycle

Information regarding how this fish reproduces or when it spawns is absent from the current data. There are no notes on egg production or juvenile growth patterns.

Sleek lates
A drawing made by EveryFish from what this page says. It is a diagram, not a picture of the real fish.

Fish and people

Local communities rely heavily on this fish for their livelihoods. It holds significant value within commercial fishing operations around the lake shores. In Tanzania, locals call it Mikebuka, while people in the DRC and Burundi refer to it as Mukeke.

Status and threats

Whether overfishing or environmental changes impact the population is unknown based on these texts.

This is an image with the theme " Health and Wellness in Africa " from:
This is an image with the theme " Health and Wellness in Africa " from:. Photo: Erasmus Kamugisha, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Questions people ask about Sleek lates

Where does the sleek lates live?

It is found exclusively in Lake Tanganyika, which borders Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi.

How big does this fish get?

The maximum recorded size is 45 centimetres in standard length, which measures from the snout to the end of the tail fin.

Is this fish eaten by people?

Yes, it is very important to local commercial fisheries in the region surrounding the lake.

Good reading and sources

Where this page comes from

The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "Sleek lates", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). EveryFish rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.

It may contain mistakes, and figures change over time. Nothing here is investment or buying advice. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-11-15.

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Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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